Scandinavian Political Studies, Bind 19 (New Series)
(1996) 1

The Role of the Public Manager: Loyalty,
Autonomy or Advocacy?

Dag Ingvar Jacobsen, Agder College,
Kristiansand

Side 45

Resumé

It is argued that the role of
the public bureaucracy must be analysed along at least
two dimensions. One dimension concerns the relationship
between politicians and bureaucrats, i.e. the possible
conflict between political loyalty and autonomy. The
other dimension concerns the relationship between
citizens and bureaucracy, i.e. the possible conflict
between openness towards citizens and bureaucratic
closedness. With the aid of data from a survey of 407
agency heads in Norwegian municipalities, it was
possible to group different bureaucrats along the two
dimensions. Four categories emerged from the analysis; a
political bureaucrat, an autonomous bureaucrat, the
"classic" administrator and the "linking pin". An
attempt to predict group membership was made using
variables on the societal, organizational as well as
individual levels. This attempt was only partially
successful, indicating that there is a need for other
independent variables to explain group membership.

Introduction

The role of the bureaucracy has
always been of central interest for students of public
policy. In modern societies public bureaucracy occupies
a central position in the preparation and implementation
of public policy. Public policy can be seen as policy
carried out by large, formal organizations (Egeberg
1994).

This article departs from the
notion that public bureaucrats will always exert a great
deal of influence on public policy. Bureaucracy shapes
public policy by preparing political decisions, thereby
limiting the alternatives and consequences among which
politicians can choose, and by implementing political
decisions. Implementation is never politically neutral.
Political decisions are often open-ended, vague and
ambiguous; making it necessary for the bureaucrats to
use discretion in order to be able to implement
practical solutions based on political decisions (Olsen
1983).

If we accept that public
managers/bureaucrats use discretion in both the
preparation and implementation of public policy, we have
to think of the bureaucrats as a distinct political
force. Public policy must then be analysed from a
political as well as an administrative perspective.
Understanding what signals bureaucrats emphasize, with
which groups they identify and which premises they find
important or unimportant is as essential to
understanding

Side 46

public policy as
are political decisions or the public "demand" for
public services and goods.

Studies on the role of the
public bureaucracy have usually focused on the division
of labour between politicians and bureaucrats. The
possible conflict between neutrality and political
loyalty and bureaucratic autonomy are recurrent topics
in the contemporary literature on administrative
behaviour (Aberbach, Putnam & Rockman 1981; Gruber
1987; Jacobsen 1960; Lægreid & Olsen 1978; Suleiman
1984; Svara 1985 & 1991; Weber 1922/ 1992; Wilson
1887/1992). During recent decades another dimension has
been put on the agenda; the possible conflict between
bureaucratic and political autonomy versus openness
towards citizens (Blubaugh 1987; Denhardt 1989; Ingraham
& Rosenbloom 1989, 1990; Long 1992; Miller 1987;
Nalbadian 1989; Peters 1987). This dimension has been
highlighted by the impact on the profession of what is
known as "new public management", an ideological trend
or school focusing on efficiency and effectiveness,
responsiveness towards citizens, "closeness to the
customer" and so forth (Downs & Larkey 1986;
Metcalfe & Richards 1987; McKevitt & Lawton
1994; Willcocks & Harrow 1992).

In this article it is argued
that the two dimensions can be characterized by three
bureaucratic roles. The first role is that of the
"classic bureaucrat" as outlined by Weber (1922/1992) in
his essay on the bureaucratic structure of government
and in Woodrow Wilson's (1887/1992) discussion on the
organizing of American government. In these articles,
the role of the bureaucrat is defined as politically
loyal, emphasizing neutrality and cues given by elected
politicians. The second role is to some degree the
opposite of the loyal bureaucrat. Here the focus is on
the autonomy of public bureaucrats, and this ideal type
can be referred to as the autonomous bureaucrat. The
third role emphasizes the link between the bureaucracy
and the citizens, and raises the question to what extent
bureaucrats respond to cues from citizens in the
community. We will refer to this role as that of the
citizens' advocate.

As already intimated, these
three roles can be viewed as ideal types. The next
question is whether these roles are mutually exclusive,
or if it is possible to imagine all these roles being
balanced by the bureaucrat. Previous empirical studies
have tentatively concluded that there is no clearcut
line between the three roles (Aberbach, Putnam &
Rockman 1981; Christensen 1991; Svara 1985, 1991).
Different role combinations are then discussed.

The next step is to view
bureaucratic roles as dependent variables. The
hypothesis is that different factors, associated with
personal, organizational and societal attributes, can
help us understand why some bureaucrats are more
market-orientated, less politically loyal, etc.

Using data from a
survey of public managers in Norwegian municipalities

Side 47

we are trying to
ascertain (a) to what extent the roles outlined above
actually exist, and (b) to what extent variation in
these roles can be explained.

Bureaucratic Roles - A Short
Background

The role of the public
bureaucracy in the making of public policy may be seen
as an interaction between three central groups; elected
politicians, employed bureaucrats and citizens. In this
article the relations between citizens and politicians
are not discussed. Of particular interest to us is the
interaction between the bureaucracy on the one hand, and
politicians and citizens on the other. The relation
between politicians and bureaucrats is twofold: First,
the politicians are dependent on having a bureaucratic
apparatus capable of preparing and implementing
political decisions. Second, the bureaucrats depend on
having politicians capable of actually taking decisions
and of monitoring and controlling the implementation of
these very decisions. As far as the citizens are
concerned the bureaucracy is one of the central
service-providers, and the citizens constitute the
clientele, user, consumers or what we can call the
"market" for public services and goods.

This article sets out to
determine the roles with which public bureaucrats
identify. A role can be defined as "the perception of
bureaucratic norms and role enactment" (Christensen
1991, 303). We are thus discussing the attitudes of the
bureaucrats toward central norms.

Three central bureaucratic
norms can be discerned. First, we have a role
emphasizing loyalty towards politicians, and stressing
the ideal of the neutral bureaucrat. The second role
stresses bureaucratic autonomy and a certain scepticism
towards politicians and citizens alike. Third, there is
a role emphasizing the needs and wishes of the citizens.

The Loyal Bureaucrat -
The Political Instrument

The thought that the
bureaucracy should act as a neutral instrument for
political leaders was elaborated to some extent by
Woodrow Wilson (1887/ 1992), but is largely attributed
to Max Weber in his essays on "the bureaucratic
structure" (1922/1992). According to Weber, public
administration should be bureaucratically organized,
meaning specialization of tasks, extensive use of
formalized rules and procedures, strong separation of
organizational and individual control of resources,
emphasis on formal education and lifelong careers. The
"rulers" (i.e. politicians) are responsible for
goal-setting, balancing different ideals and values and
elaborating rules

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and procedures
that would secure a "technically efficient"
implementation of goals.

This view on bureaucrats is
based on several rather unrealistic assumptions. One
central assumption is that the bureaucrats do not pursue
goals and preferences of their own. They will implement
every decision loyally, even if they disagree with the
content of the decision (Lægreid & Olsen 1978). If
we relax this assumption, a "technical" view on the
bureaucracy assumes that rules and procedures are
clear-cut and easy to understand for all, making the use
of discretion unnecessary or impossible. This assumes
perfect rationality among the rulers, that they are
capable of making rules that include every alternative,
every consequence of every alternative and that all
cases can be subordinated to a distinct rule (Simon
1957). Perfect rationality would mean perfect monitoring
of bureaucrats.

Both these assumptions are
clearly unrealistic. Is it then impossible to speak
about a politically loyal bureaucrat? No, not if the
intentions of the rulers are followed closely. In
practice this would mean a close connection between
bureaucrats and rulers, where the bureaucrats are trying
to formulate and implement political decisions which are
as close to the political intentions as possible.

The Autonomous
Bureaucrat - The Bureaucrat as Policy-Maker

The problems connected with
perfect rationality have led many theorists to conclude
that public bureaucracy is unmanageable (see, for
instance, Lipsky 1980). Increasing quantity and
complexity in the area of public responsibility,
increases the size of bureaucracy and the degree of
professionalization which in turn makes political
monitoring even more difficult. The information gap
between politicians and bureaucrats has increased. The
complexity in public policy has led to more extensive
use of professionals in the public bureaucracy. As noted
by Scott (1966, 269), the professionalization of the
bureaucracy results in severe monitoring problems:

(1) the
professional's resistance to bureaucratic rules, (2) the
professional's rejection of bureaucratic standards,
(3) the professional's resistance to bureaucratic
supervision; and (4) the professional's conditional
loyalty to the bureaucracy.

The professional bureaucrat
will often emerge as an autonomous actor, trying to use
professional instead of political premises when taking
decisions. A professional will often be sceptical
towards political decisions, arguing that they often are
based on inadequate information and incomplete
knowledge. They will also, to a certain extent, be
sceptical towards citizens; arguing that citizens often
do not know what is in their own best interests.

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Professional
autonomy becomes one of the most important aspects of
the public bureaucracy (Mintzberg 1979).

More modern economic theories
about bureaucracy argue that the bureaucrats will try to
become more autonomous so that they can maximize their
own interests (Niskanen 1971). Incomplete information
makes it possible for the bureaucrat to hide important
pieces of information, and to use this hidden
information to further personal interests. Economic
theory refers to this as the problem of "moral hazard"
(Milgrom & Roberts 1992). The more autonomous the
bureaucrats become, i.e. the more they are sheltered
from pressures from both politicians and citizens, the
greater the likelihood that they can maximize own
interests.

Whatever the motives of the
bureaucrats might be, professional interest or more
narrow personal interests, the consequence is the same -
more and more autonomous bureaucratic actors. In
practice we will assume that this kind of bureaucrat
will try to buffer himself from politicians and users,
and to put more emphasis on professional values and
arguments.

The Citizens' Advocate —
The Democratic Bureaucrat

Recent research on public
policy questions the democratic nature of political as
well as bureaucratic systems. Elected politicians often
emerge as narrow elites, not representative of the
public at large (Dahl 1961). Bureaucrats seem to be more
interested in doing a professionally interesting job
than in meeting the needs of the public (Gruber 1987).

But a totally different view on
the bureaucracy can be applied, that of the bureaucrat
acting in the interest of the citizen. When
acknowledging that the bureaucracy is a political force
because it always shapes political decisions in one way
or another, it becomes important to ask to what extent
the bureaucrats act as advocates for the citizens
(Aberbach, Putnam & Rockman 1981). A third ideal
role emerges.

This role emphasizes that
bureaucrats are in frequent contact with the users of
the services they provide and receive inputs from them
in the form of decision premises, complaints, and so on.
The citizens' advocate will try to meet the needs of the
public, even if they run counter to political decisions
or professional values and ideals.

Bureaucratic reforms,
designed to make bureaucracy more democratic, have in
fact been a constant fixture on the political agenda
during the last few years. Several Western democracies
have set out to create a more representative
bureaucracy, for instance by recruiting more women,
blacks, other professions, etc. (Ingraham &
Rosenbloom 1989); and some have discussed the
possibility of establishing a particular public culture,
emphasizing democratic ideals and values (Denhardt
1989). Yet another school has adopted ideals from
management in the private sector, arguing that

Side 50

public bureaucracies should
be "close to the customer" (Peters & Waterman 1982).
These ideals play a role in most of the "new public
management" theories. Public bureaucrats should get
closer to the customer by increasing the degree of
direct participation in the decision-making process
(Harrow & Shaw 1992), by using market research to
unravel citizens demands (Downs & Larkey 1986) and
by focusing more on external results than on internal
operations (Metcalfe & Richards 1987).

This new trend in public
bureaucracy, by some called "consumerism" (Willcocks
& Harrow 1992), implies that the bureaucrat tries to
act in the interests of the citizen. Signals from the
"market" will be more important than political or
professional cues. A "citizens' advocate" may even
dissociate himself from political and professional
arenas on the assumption that politicians only represent
a certain elite and that professionals are more
interested in doing an interesting job rather than in
providing the services that consumers need and demand.

The Ideal Roles - Mutually
Exclusive or Complex Interplay?

The discussion in the last
chapter would seem to suggest that the three ideal roles
are at odds with one another. Empirically, this seems
rather unlikely. (Aberbach, Putnam & Rockman 1981,
Aberbach & Rockman 1988). Aberbach and his
associates argue that these roles represent an evolution
in the view on public bureaucracies. The strong Weberian
distinction between politics and administration (what
they call "Image I"), was replaced by a more complex
view where both politicians and bureaucrats were seen to
exert political influence (what they call "Image II").
Image II stresses the autonomy and administrative
rationality of bureaucrats, as opposed to a more
political rationality among politicians. The next step
in the evolution stressed the close link between
bureaucracy and "consumers" (especially interest
organizations) on the assumption that bureaucrats also
act as mediators between such interests (what they call
"Image III"). The main point made by Aberbach et al. is
that these three roles are intertwined in such a way as
to produce a bureaucratic role which is both politically
loyal, professionally autonomous and sensitive to
citizens' needs and wishes. They call this the "pure
hybrid", or "Image IV". The bureaucrat becomes a
politician.

Other empirical studies have
also concluded that the three ideal roles seem to
interact rather than conflict. In a study of Norwegian
central state bureaucrats, Christensen (1991) argues
that there is little or no conflict between professional
and political cues. Relying on several studies of
American local and federal bureaucrats, Svara (1985,
1991) points out

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that there is a duality
between politicians and administrators, and that
bureaucrats are both politically loyal and
professionally autonomous. According to Peters (1987)
politicians and bureaucrats eventually become socialized
into the same belief systems, thereby eliminating the
possibility of conflict between the two groups. The
politicians become more and more "bureaucratized" and
the bureaucrats more and more "politicized". Miller
(1987), Kearney & Sinha (1988) and Streib (1992)
conclude that there is no empirical evidence of conflict
between professional, political and democratic values
among bureaucrats. On the contrary, emphasis on
professional values seems to increase the emphasis on
democratic values.

These empirical findings imply
that the ideal types may not be sufficient in order to
account for the complex roles of public bureaucrats. We
argue that the bureaucratic roles must be viewed along
at least two separate dimensions. The first dimension
concerns the relationship between bureaucrats and
politicians. This dimension illustrates the possible
conflict between political loyalty and neutrality on the
one extreme, and the autonomous ideal on the other. The
second dimension concerns the relationship between
bureaucrats and citizens. On this dimension we run into
the possible conflict between openness towards citizens
vs. a more closed, classic bureaucratic position. Most
empirical research focuses on one dimension alone: there
has been less effort to try and combine the two.

Constant or Variable Roles?

So far we have discussed the
roles as if they were constant. It is possible to apply
a more dynamic perspective on bureaucratic roles. It can
be argued that the role affiliation is to some degree
determined by other variables; and in order to explain
variance in role perception and role affiliation we have
to identify at least some of the independent variables.

We start by identifying
independent variables on three different levels.
Variation in role perception and role affiliation can be
explained by focusing on different societal bases for
bureaucracies. Heady (1966) argues that differences in
regime type (democratic vs. totalitarian) can account
for variations in role affiliations, but the empirical
evidence for this hypothesis is somewhat shaky (Heper,
Kim & Pai 1980). Aberbach et al. (1981) claim that
national culture and history can explain different
bureaucratic roles - a claim partially corroborated by
empirical evidence. This view is supported by Suleiman
(1984). Narrowing the focus to more national variables,
we hypothesize that the size (both physically and in
terms of number of people) of the social unit under
public authority will influence adherence to different
bureaucratic roles. The smaller the social unit, the
closer the contact with citizens, perhaps to the point
of increasing the likelihood of an open

Side 52

and responsive
system, sensitive to cues from citizens and reducing the
likelihood of a closed system, where the bureaucrats
are encouraged to shelter themselves from the
citizens.

The variance may also be
accounted for by organizational differences. Different
organizational sectors will be of different political
interest. In sectors associated with strong political
interest, the loyal bureaucrat will be more likely,
while lack of political interest may open up prospects
for more autonomous and citizen-oriented roles. Also,
the longer a bureaucrat has been part of the
organization, the more likely it is that he/she has
become socialized into the existing political values.
Agency heads recruited externally will probably be less
socialized than heads recruited internally (Pfeffer
1994). Socialization will probably lead to a convergence
between politicians and bureaucrats (Peters 1987),
making the politically loyal role more likely. The
greater the possibility to discipline the bureaucrats
(by giving them prospects of higher wages, higher level
jobs, and the fewer external possibilities they have),
the better the politicians can manage the bureaucrats
(Pfeffer & Salancik 1978). The sheer size of the
organization can reduce the possibilities for political
control and influence, thereby providing more room for
an autonomous role. Size can also increase the distance
between leaders and citizens. The degree of
professionalization in different sectors (i.e. a
homogeneous formal education as a criterion to getting a
certain job) can also account for variation with respect
to role affiliation.

The last group of independent
variables is associated with individual differences
among bureaucrats. Variables such as age, sex and
education may be important (Christensen 1991). In
addition, we are also interested in the bureaucrat's
connection to the community. It is possible that the
autonomous role is easier to choose if one does not have
tight links with the community. A hypothesis could be
that the closer the links between bureaucrat and
community, the more likely he/she is to choose a role
close to the "citizens' advocate".

The Survey

The focus of this survey is
public, middle-level managers in Norwegian
municipalities. Norway is divided into 448
municipalities, (ranging in size from a little more than
500 inhabitants to approximately 460,000), and 19
counties. Total municipal expenditures represent
approximately 17 percent of total public expenditures,
but account for 64 percent of public employment. The
latter figure is larger than the corresponding figures
for most other European countries, excluding the
Scandinavian countries (Page & Goldsmith 1987). It
is a by-product of the fact that the municipalities have

Side 53

the main responsibility for
the provision of labour-intensive public services.
Certain services are obligatory and must by law be
provided by the local authorities. This includes basic
education (grades 1-9), health (excluding hospitals
which are administered by the regional county level) and
social services. Most local authorities also have a
technical sector (waste and garbage collection, road
maintenance, etc) and a cultural sector. In terms of
expenditure, social services represent approximately 20
percent, education 19 percent, health 16 percent and
culture/church 5 percent. The remaining 40 percent is
accounted for by central administration, housing,
business activities and "miscellaneous". This gives a
slightly biased picture, because while the three sectors
education, health and social services represent
approximately 55 percent of total expenditures, they
represent approximately 80 percent of municipality
employment.

Traditionally, local
authorities are administratively organized in four
sectors - education, health/social services, technical
services and culture. Each sector is headed by a "sector
leader", or agency head. Political organization has
largely followed the administrative division of labour.
All local authorities are obliged to have an executive
(kommunestyre), an "elite" political forum that presents
cases to the council (formannskap) and a chief
administrative officer (rådmann). Other political and
administrative organs are largely voluntary, although
there are some political fora specified in different,
specific laws. There are some variations in the
political and administrative organization of the
municipalities, but the main picture is as outlined
above. A new law concerning local authorities was passed
in 1993 which paves the way for more political and
administrative diversity, but it is still very much in
an experimental stage.

The Sample

The selection of respondents
was made in two steps. The population of municipalities
was stratified by size (number of inhabitants). Almost
80 percent of the municipalities are smaller than 20,000
inhabitants. We then selected at random 130
municipalities, with a slight överrepresentation of
larger municipalities (above 20,000 inhabitants), i.e. 9
percent in the population versus 20 percent in the
sample. In each of these 130 municipalities we sent a
questionnaire to all four agency heads. Data were
collected between November 1993 and January 1994. The
total population was 520 out of whom 407 responded,
giving a response rate of 78 percent, which was deemed
highly satisfactory. When checking for biases, we found
no systematic biases regarding sector, municipality
size, geographic region, sector or sex. The sample seems
to be highly representative.

Some of the
differences between the sectors are well worth
commenting upon at this stage. The educational and
technical sectors have the oldest

Side 54

agency heads with the longest
tenure in the office as well as in the municipality.
Both the educational and the technical sectors are
dominated by semi-professional educations (3-4 years or
more, i.e. teachers and engineers) and there is very
little by way of variation, especially within the
technical sector. The educational sector is strongly
dominated by internal recruitment, which is the
predominant form of recruitment in all four sectors. The
between-sector variation is marginal as regards years of
education, which clearly is not a relevant indicator of
the degree of professionalization.

Data Analysis

In an attempt to tap the
respondents' role perception we asked them to what
extent they agreed or disagreed on a total of 19
statements. As a rule, the questions/statements were
taken from other, empirical studies of bureaucratic
roles (Streib 1992; Laegreid & Olsen 1978; Egeberg
1984; Christensen 1991; Edwards, Nalbadian & Wedel
1981; Svara 1991). The items are listed in Appendix 1.
On theoretical grounds, seven of the items were expected
to tap the dimension previously referred to as "openness
towards citizens", while the remaining twelve items were
seen as indicators of the dimension which we have
identified as "political loyalty versus autonomy''. A
stepwise factor analysis was carried out in order to
check the validity of these assumptions. As a result
eleven of the original items were excluded, because they
were not valid and tapped dimensions other than the two
of interest here.1 The remaining eight items
fell clearly into a two-factor solution explaining 41
percent of the total variance. Three items measure the
attitude towards increased direct, citizen
participation, an important component in the dimension
"openness towards citizens". The other five items
measure the dimension "political
loyalty-autonomy".2 The distribution on the
eight items is presented in Table 1.

Interestingly enough, only two
items show rather uniform results. Almost all the
respondents agree with the propositions that "increased
participation will make public policy better" and that
one "should act as an administrator". The remaining
items display a great deal of variance, indicating a
high degree of heterogeneity among bureaucrats. The
items measuring attitudes towards increased
participation and attitudes towards loyalty/ neutrality
are not significantly correlated. This may serve as an
indication that there is nothing or little by way of
perceived conflict between these different roles which
would go towards corroborating the findings reported by
Christensen (1991) and Streib (1992).

We then
proceeded with an analysis designed to identify the
different bureaucratic roles. Assuming that it is
possible for a respondent to score high or low on
both dimensions, or high on one dimension and low on the

other we opted for cluster
analysis. With cluster analysis, respondents are grouped
into different clusters by one or several variables.
Basically, the technique produces groups of highly
similar entities (Aldenderfer & Blashfield 1984). In
this study we use the two dimensions ("attitudes towards
citizen participation" and "political loyalty
/autonomy") as a starting-point in an attempt to
classify different groups of bureaucrats in the sample.
The eight items (Table 1) were collapsed into two
indices. Two straightforward additive indices were
computed. The index measuring "attitude towards citizen
participation" consists of the sum of items
Y1?Y1? Y2, Y3Y3 divided
by 3 (the number of items), and the index measuring
"political loyalty/autonomy" is defined as the sum of
items Y4, Y5, Y6,
Y7, Y8 divided by 5.

Side 56

Table 2. The Scores of the Four
Clusters on the Two Dimensions. Total Sample Means, and
Group Deviations from Total Mean. Index Range: 1-5.
"Citizen Participation": 1 = Very Sceptical Towards
Increased Citizen Participation; "Political
Loyal/Autonomy": 1 = Very Politically
Loyal/Little Administrative Autonomy

A hierarchical cluster analysis
suggested the presence of four different groups in the
sample. Cluster analyses on various subsamples confirmed
the existence of such a pattern.3 Table 2
demonstrates how the four groups score on the two
dimensions.

There are significant
differences between the four groups on the two
dimensions (citizen participation: F= 221.0560, prob =
0.000; loyalty/ autonomy: F = 247.6811, prob = 0.000).
We are, therefore, well advised to identify what the
four groups/clusters stand for:

Cluster 1: "The political
bureaucrat". This is a group of bureaucrats who are
favourably disposed towards increased direct citizen
participation, and who seem to strive for increased
autonomy from politicians. This group of bureaucrats
appears to be closely linked to the notion of a
citizens' advocate (Denhardt 1989) responding to cues
from citizens rather than to political signals.
Thirty-four percent of the respondents belong to this
group.

Cluster 2: "The autonomous
bureaucrat", being sceptical towards increased citizen
participation, and seeking autonomy from politicians.
The bureaucrats within this category seem to shelter
themselves from politicians and citizens alike. This
category accounts for 22 percent of the respondents.

Cluster 3: "The classic
administrator". The members of this group are sceptical
towards increased participation, but seem to be more
politically loyal than the total sample mean. This
bureaucratic type is closely related to the Weberian
ideal. It constitutes 29 percent of the total sample.

Cluster 4: "The
linking pin". The members of this group are favourably
disposed towards increased participation and stand
out as more politically loyal than the total sample
mean. This type of

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bureaucrat can be hypothesized
to function as a transmitter of signals from citizens to
politicians (and vice versa), but without taking a
personal stand in different situations. It accounts for
15 percent of the total sample.

But are these valid clusters?
An indication is to use external variables to check for
validity in the clustering (Hair et al. 1992). Using
questions on who the respondents felt were important
discussion partners and which groups they felt should be
more important in the decision process we searched for
correlation between group membership and these
variables.4 The "autonomous bureaucrat" gave
less emphasis on discussion with citizens than the other
groups (cor. = —0.11, sig. LE 0.05), while the linking
pin emphasized this more than the other groups (cor. =
0.10, sig. LE 0.05). The political bureaucrats are more
inclined than the others to say that individual citizens
should be more important in the decision process (cor. =
0.12, sig. LE 0.05). The autonomous bureaucrat would
like the central government to be more important (cor. =
0.11, sig. LE 0.05), while the linking pin would assign
more weight to organized interests in the municipality
(cor. = 0.17, sig. LE 0.01). All these results are as
predicted, indicating that the clusters are indeed valid
groupings of respondents.

The data suggest
that the political bureaucrat and the classic
administrator are the most common bureaucratic
types. The linking pin seems to a be a less common
type.

The last step in the analysis
is to explain group membership. Initially, we focused on
three types of variables: (1) municipality size, (2)
organizational variables, i.e. sector and potential for
discipline and socialization,5 and (3)
individual variables, i.e. sex, age, years and type of
education and links to community (grown up in the
municipality, years lived in the municipality, family in
the municipality). The dependent variable is group
membership. Group membership was transformed into four
dummy variables where 1 denotes a specific group
membership, while 0 denotes the other three groups.
Since the dependent variable is a dichotomy, logistic
regression was chosen (Aldrich & Nelson 1984). Four
separate equations were computed, one for each dependent
variable. The results are reported in Appendix 2.

The attempt to predict group
membership gave mixed results. To a certain extent we
were successful in predicting group membership in two
groups: the autonomous bureaucrat and the "linking pin",
but the —2 log likelihood ratio is not significant.
Membership in the other two groups is not predicted very
well at all. All attempts to explain group membership
suffer from a rather low fit between the model and the
actual results. If we look at some of the single,
significant correlations we can, however, find some
interesting results. The probability of finding a
political bureaucrat

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seems to be slightly lower in
the technical sector than in other sectors, and in
organizations with a high potential for discipline. This
indicates that organizations can create more loyal
bureaucrats by using different mechanisms for discipline
(Lægreid & Olsen 1978). The autonomous bureaucrat
seems to be slightly less tightly linked to the
community. Bureaucrats who have grown up in the
municipality they work in are less likely to adhere to
an autonomous ideal. The probability of finding a
classic administrator seems to be higher in
organizations with a high potential for discipline. This
ties in well with the findings reported for the
political bureaucrat. Lastly, there is less likelihood
of finding the linking pin among teachers and among
bureaucrats tightly linked to the community. Teachers
are the most sceptical towards both citizens and
politicians, perhaps because of extensive
experimentation with increased citizen participation
(i.e. schools managed by parents) and political pressure
towards reductions in the school sector brought out by
the declining number of children of school age. Tight
links to the community seem to make the position of the
"neutral" linking pins difficult. Perhaps this role
demands a more detached position from the community.
Finally, we see that this role seems to thrive among
highly socialized bureaucrats, bureaucrats who have
learned to balance different demands and wishes from
different groups (Christensen 1991).

Discussion and Conclusion

This article set out with two
objectives. The first was to analyse empirically
bureaucratic roles along two dimensions: political
neutrality/loyalty vs. bureaucratic autonomy, and
openness vs. autonomy from citizens. The second
objective was to account for bureaucratic role
perception by using a set of individual, organizational
and societal variables.

The survey data at hand made it
possible to divide the individual bureaucrats into four,
not three as originally anticipated, distinct groups
with different role perceptions and affiliations. The
four groups can be placed along two dimensions, as shown
in Fig. 1.

What we have called the
"classic administrator" is part and parcel of the
discourse about the Weberian bureaucratic ideal. This
group combines political loyalty with autonomy from
direct citizen influence. The "linking pin" could
readily be associated with what we have referred to as
the "citizens' advocate". Here we find a group of
persons actively involved with politicians and citizens
alike.

The "autonomous bureaucrat"
calls for some modifications of the original
assumptions. Empirically, we find two types of autonomy.
The first, the "political bureaucrat", strives for
autonomy from politicians, but not from citizens. This
role could be rather close to a professional ideal if we
accept

Side 59

Fig. 1. The Four Bureaucratic Roles
Placed Along Two Dimensions

the notion that professionals
are "(• • ) honoured servants of public need, conceiving
of them as occupations especially distinguished from
others by their orientation to serving the needs of the
public (. . .)." (Freidson 1983, 19). Political autonomy
may even be necessary in order for the bureaucrat to
satisfy such citizens' needs. The professional must be
able to adjust, sometimes rather quickly, to specific
individual needs. This local adjustment is not easy to
combine with political monitoring. The second kind of
bureaucrat, the "autonomous bureaucrat", seems to be
closely related to economic theories about bureaucracy.
The members of this group try to protect themselves from
politicians as well as citizens, perhaps because "they
enjoy autonomy, because their lives are easier if they
are their own masters, because they feel they know best"
(Gruber 1987, 87). In this sense, they would seem to
meet the criteria of a rather egoistic type of
bureaucrat.

This study also underlines
the importance of analysing bureaucratic roles along
several dimensions. Nordic studies have generally
focused on the loyalty-autonomy dimension (Lundquist
1993; Lægreid & Olsen 1978; Christensen 1991), while
recent Anglo-American research tends to emphasize the
citizen dimension (Aberbach, Putnam & Rockman 1981;
Greene 1982; Streib 1992). This difference is possibly
due to the fact that many Nordic studies have studied
central government, while the Anglo-American

Side 60

studies seem more preoccupied
with the local and regional government. We argue that
the closer a bureaucrat is to service provision and the
closer he/she is to direct citizen influence, the more
important the citizen dimension will become. Perhaps the
citizen dimension will be more important in studies of
local and regional government than in studies of central
government.

This study indicates that it is
both theoretically meaningful, and empirically possible
to analyse bureaucratic roles along both dimensions. But
it has, nevertheless, only scratched the surface of the
complex reality of public bureaucrats. In real life,
these bureaucrats have to balance expectations from
other groups than politicians and citizens. Media,
corporate interests, central government, professional
organizations, all place some expectations on the
bureaucrats, all want the bureaucrat to emphasize
different roles. In future studies, it would be
interesting to see how bureaucrats balance these role
expectations with the two dimensions discussed in this
article.

Another important conclusion
can also be derived: There is not just one, perhaps not
even a predominant, role in public bureaucracies. We
will find several different roles, possibly existing
side by side within the same organization. In this
study, we have tried to explain role perceptions and
role affiliation using a set of stable and structural
variables. The hypothesis is that certain structural
arrangements (either social, organizational or
individual) will favour one of the roles over the
others. This hypothesis gets very limited support from
the data at hand. Other explanations also have to be
considered. Two possibilities seem particularly
interesting. First of all, we could include
"personality" as a variable. Different personalities and
capabilities can perhaps explain why some people choose
one role over the other. This would pull in favour of
more psychologically based studies, perhaps using more
classic leadership theories (Strand 1987). Second, it is
possible that one and the same bureaucrat can take on
different roles in different situations. The study
reported here is static, and records only what role the
respondents felt affiliated with at the time they filled
out the questionnaire. It has been argued that public
bureaucrats have to live with several, and often
conflicting roles (Jacobsen 1960). Later studies would
benefit greatly from including information on how
bureaucrats make priorities between different roles in
specific situations.

NOTES

1. First, a general check
for Measuring Sampling Adequacy (MSA) was conducted.
Three items (Y6, Yg,
Yl9)Y19) had a MSA below 0.50, and were
excluded (Kim & Mueller 1978). The subsequent factor
analysis resulted in six factors. Two of these
dimensions were of lesser interest to this study. One
dimension measured the general perception of citizens
(Y3), the other the general perception of
politicians (Y9, YlO,Y10,
Yn, Yl2).Y12). Two other factors
gave very unclear results (i.e. high and significant
factor loadings on several factors). This led to the
exclusion of Y7, Yn,
Yl4.Y14.

Side 61

1. First, a general check
for Measuring Sampling Adequacy (MSA) was conducted.
Three items (Y6, Yg,
Yl9)Y19) had a MSA below 0.50, and were
excluded (Kim & Mueller 1978). The subsequent factor
analysis resulted in six factors. Two of these
dimensions were of lesser interest to this study. One
dimension measured the general perception of citizens
(Y3), the other the general perception of
politicians (Y9, YlO,Y10,
Yn, Yl2).Y12). Two other factors
gave very unclear results (i.e. high and significant
factor loadings on several factors). This led to the
exclusion of Y7, Yn,
Yl4.Y14.

3. The hierarchical cluster
analysis (squared Euclidian distance) resulted in the
following "fusion coefficients" for the last seven
clusters: Number of Fusion clusters coefficient change %
change 7 2.01 6 2.14 0.13 7% 5 2.27 0.13 6% 4 2.61 0.34
15% 3 3.69 1.08 41% 2 4.43 0.74 20% 1 6.16 1.73 39%
There is a significant leap from four to three clusters,
indicating that at this point, two rather heterogeneous
groups are fused (Hair et al. 1992). The sample was
randomly split into two subsamples, and the same
analysis was produced for both, giving almost identical
results compared to the total sample. This indicates
stability in the solution.

4. In this analysis group
membership was recoded into four dichotomous variables,
contrasting one group against all other respondents. The
variables measuring importance of discussion partners
have a range from 1 to 5, while the variables measuring
which groups should be more important range from 1 to 4.

5. A variable indicating an
organization's discipline potential was created, basedon
three items tapping the respondents' perceptions of
their chances of getting salary hikes or promotions in
the near future in their current place of work and of
their potential on the labour (easy or difficult to find
a new job) as well as their commitment to their current
place of work (whether they have any specific plans to
quit). A high score denotes high discipline potential
(both salary hikes and promotions are perceived
possible; it is hard to find a new job and the
respondent does not plan to quit). The variable ranges
from 4 (low) to 12 (high). The organization's potential
for socialization is measured by tenure in position and
tenure in the municipality. The internal/external
recruitment ratio is also an indication of the
organization's potential for socialization (Pfeffer
1994).